Editorial: Prevention is the key

Federal officials were in Memphis last week to hear about the city's efforts to reduce the crime rate and to ask what more could be done to address the root causes of crime.

It's hard to think of a more useful discussion because it is clear that the city's high rates of poverty, lack of positive role models for youth, educational shortcomings and the like are significant contributors to the crime rate.

The city has not been sitting on its hands in that respect. Strategies developed by the five-year-old Operation: Safe Community initiative call for smart investments in programs that can steer troubled youth off risky paths, help those who have served sentences for criminal violations return to society and the like.

Any new federal program that targets those factors should look to Memphis as a laboratory for the development of best practices.

New partnerships between the federal government and its resources and Memphis with its ideas should be developed with the goal of striking at crime where it starts.

Crime prevention is the key to maintaining the progress that the city has made so far.